From January to August this year, China’s service trade continued to grow steadily. The total import and export of services was 3937.56 billion yuan, up 20.4% year on year.
According to the person in charge of the Department of Services and Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, from January to August, China’s service exports reached 1908.24 billion yuan, up 23.1% year on year; Imports reached 2029.32 billion yuan, up 17.9% year on year. The growth rate of service exports was 5.2 percentage points higher than that of imports, driving the deficit of service trade down 29.5% to 121.08 billion yuan. In August, China’s total service import and export amounted to 543.79 billion yuan, up 17.6% year on year. It mainly presents the following characteristics:
Trade in knowledge intensive services grew steadily. From January to August, China’s import and export of knowledge intensive services reached 1643.27 billion yuan, up 11.4% year on year. Among them, the export of knowledge intensive services was 929.79 billion yuan, up 15.7% year on year; The areas with rapid export growth were intellectual property royalties, telecommunications computers and information services, with year-on-year growth of 24% and 18.4% respectively. The import of knowledge intensive services was 713.48 billion yuan, up 6.2% year on year; The area with rapid import growth is insurance services, with a growth rate of 64.4%.
The import and export of travel services kept growing. From January to August, China’s import and export of travel services reached 542.66 billion yuan, up 7.1% year on year. Excluding travel services, China’s service imports and exports increased by 22.8% from January to August on a year-on-year basis; Compared with the same period in 2019, the import and export of services increased by 51.9%.